The 20-month game of “Where’s Melania?” ended on Thursday with the former first lady making a grand entrance to the 2024 Republican National Convention—in its final hours.
She took her seat in the VIP box, 45 minutes after the rest of the Trump clan but remained seated while the family rose to their feet for Kid Rock, appeared to not mingle with her step-children, and broke decades of tradition by declining to deliver a speech at the convention, something she had repeatedly been pressed to do. (Even her presence at the convention had not been confirmed in advance.)
Melania Trump’s presence at the RNC was not confirmed in advance and saw her arrive only for its very last moments.
Jeenah Moon/ReutersWhen Melania joined Trump at the end of his record-setting 93-minute speech, she seemed to swerve as he tried to kiss her. The former first lady had also appeared to rebuff Trump’s advances after his speech at the 2020 convention, when she was first lady.
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That was an improvement on the 2016 convention when she did speak to introduce her husband, only for it to be revealed that her speech was plagiarized from one by Michelle Obama.
Melania loathed the attention of being first lady. She arrived late to the White House. Her trip to the pyramids in Egypt was a rare solo foreign trip.
Carlo Allegri/ReutersAlthough she appeared fleetingly on the 2016 campaign trail and was at his side when, to widespread shock, he was declared to have beaten Hillary Clinton, it was quickly rumored that she was uninterested in the trappings of the East Wing.
Melania’s initial months as first lady didn’t do much to quash rumors that she was not keen on the role. She waited five months to move into the White House, while renegotiating her prenup from her and Trump’s New York City penthouse. When she arrived in the East Wing, she and Trump allegedly slept in separate bedrooms.
Even when she moved to D.C. a Trump family friend told Vanity Fair, “She didn’t want this to come hell or high water. I don’t think she thought it was going to happen.”
Further breaking with tradition, she waited more than a year to announce her signature initiative, “Be Best,” a campaign focusing on cyberbullying awareness.
This was how Melania launched “Be Best,” intended to target cyberbullying, but was quickly on the defensive over her husband’s online practices.
Darren Ornitz/Reuters
The “Be Best” initiative was only launched in 2018 and celebrated its anniversary the next year in the Rose Garden. Melania was subsequently criticized for digging up the Rose Garden.
Clodagh Kilcoyne/ReutersMelania first introduced the project in Sep. 2017 during a visit to the United Nations in New York. “By our own example, we must teach children to be good stewards of the world they will inherit,” she said. “We must remember that they are watching and listening... As adults we are not merely responsible. We are accountable.”
During the same U.N. trip, her husband called Kim Jong Un “little rocket man” and threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea on Twitter—hardly in keeping with “Be Best”—then went on to attack his political and domestic enemies repeatedly on the medium despite his wife decrying cyberbullying.
As first lady her every public move was scrutizined, something her friends said she hated, including this moment at a G7 summit in France when she greeted Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with a kiss, apparently not to her husband’s liking.
Carlos Barria/ReutersMelania, friends said, hated the constant public attention. “No one was paying attention to her two years ago,” a source close to the former first lady told People in 2018. “They went about their day. Now it’s a 24/7 tornado. She hates it.”
She also hated being criticized for appearing uninvolved and uninvested in her roles as first lady, but the infamous “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” jacket from Zara (now available on eBay for $79.99) came to define her image and her response to her critics.
The Zara “I Really Don’t Care Do U?” jacket Melania wore to visit the border came to define her time in the East Wing. Its message remains disputed.
Kevin Lamarque/ReutersThey were not short of fodder: there was her decision to renovate the Rose Garden during the COVID-19 pandemic and also do a photo shoot during the attempted coup on Jan. 6, 2020 at the Capitol that left five people dead.
Her apparent apathy towards her duties as first lady carried over to White House holiday decorating. Melania was caught on tape lamenting about getting the White House in the holiday spirit in 2018. “You know, who gives a fuck about Christmas stuff and decoration?” she said.
Her White House Christmas set ups included “Tim Burton”-esque white spindly branches and blood red trees that quickly drew public criticism and were deemed “un-American” and jokingly referred to as “murder trees.”
In 2018, her Christmas trees at the White House were derided as “murder trees.” Leaked recordings revealed that she said “who gives a fuck about Christmas?”
Leah Mills/ReutersWith her husband officially becoming the Republican presidential nominee, Melania faces four more potential years as first lady and four more rounds of White House Christmas decorations. Time to Be Best Again.
